Morphology, Part 2
January 26, 2012
In Our Last Episode• Words and morphemes (meaningful “word parts”)
• Free and bound morphemes
• Simple and complex words
• Affixes and roots
• Word-formation rules
• Affixes attach to a root (or base) of a particular lexical category…
• and create a new word.
Layers of Words• Words that are formed through the addition of multiple affixes have a layered, or hierarchical structure.
• One (ugly) way to represent this structure is through bracket notation:
• [root] [construct]
• [[affix] + [root]] [[re-] + [construct]] (=base)
• [[base] + [affix]] [[[re-] + [construct]] + [-ion]]
• WORD reconstruction
Tree Structures• In this class, we’ll primarily stick with tree diagrams to represent word structure.
• (because they look better and are easier to read)
re construct ion un desire able
• Tree terminology: branches
• nodes: where two branches meet
• nodes represent constituents of the word
Building the Perfect Beasts• To accurately capture all of the facts of word formation…
• tree structures should represent the lexical categories of all constituents at each node in the tree.
Noun Adj
Verb Adj
Aff Verb Aff Aff Verb Aff
[re-] [construct] [-ion] [un-] [desire] [-able]
Ambiguity• Some complex words can have more than one interpretation
• Different derivations can result in different interpretations
• Example: “unlockable”
Note: [un-] can attach to both adjectives and verbs
[-able] attaches to verbs and creatives adjectives
Unlockable, part 1 Adj
Adj
Aff Verb Aff
[un-] [lock] [-able]
• = not able to be locked
Unlockable, part 2 Adj
Verb
Aff Verb Aff
[un-] [lock] [-able]
• = able to be unlocked
Inflections vs. Derivations• Linguists draw another distinction among affixes:
1. Inflectional affixes:• mark grammatical properties
• (person, number, gender, tense, aspect)• don’t change other aspects of meaning• are required by rules of sentence structure• create a new “word form”
2. Derivational affixes:• change meaning• create a new word • (typically) have clear semantic content• may change the lexical category of the word
Inflectional Affixes• There are precisely eight inflectional affixes in English:
• -s 3rd person wait --> waits
• -ing progressive wait --> waiting
• -ed past tense wait --> waited
• -en past participle eat --> eaten
• -s plural card --> cards
• -’s possessive dad --> dad’s
• -er comparative tall --> taller
• -est superlative weak --> weakest
1. All of these are suffixes.
Inflectional Affixes• Other languages can have a lot more inflectional affixes.
• Examples from French: parler “to speak”
• 1st person, plural: parlons “We speak”
• 2nd person, plural: parlez “You guys speak”
• Past tense:
• 1st person, singular: parlais “I spoke”
• 1st person, plural: parlions “We spoke”
• 2nd person, plural: parliez “You guys spoke”
• Plus many, many more.
Derivational Affixes• In contrast to inflectional affixes, derivational affixes:
• Create new words when they’re attached to roots
• Examples:
• re- cycle --> recycle
• de- code --> decode
• -y fish --> fishy
• -ize vandal --> vandalize
• Also: English has far more derivational affixes than inflectional affixes.
A Note on Word Forms• Morphologists use the term lexeme to refer to a group of related word forms.
• wait, waits, waited, waiting, etc.
• The canonical form of the lexeme is called the lemma.
• = the “headword” in a dictionary.
• Inflectional affixes relate a lexeme to its various forms.
• Derivational affixes relate one lexeme to another lexeme.
lemma
word forms
different lexeme
The Class System• In English, there are two types of derivational affixes:
1. Class 1 (or Level 1)
• Often cause phonological (sound) changes in the root
• Also cause more profound semantic (meaning) changes to the root
• Can combine with bound roots, too.
• Ex: -ity, -y, -ion
• For instance:
• Electric electricity; stupid stupidity
• democrat democracy; nation
The Class System• Class 2 (or Level 2)
• Don’t cause phonological (sound) changes in root.
• Less of a semantic (meaning) effect, too.
• Ex: -ness, -less, -er, -ish
• Normally, Class 1 affixes attach to the root before Class 2 affixes.
• relational -ion (1), -al (1)
• divisiveness -ive (1), -ness (2)
• *fearlessity -less (2), -ity (1)
• fearlessness -less (2), -ness (2)
Productivity• Productivity = the extent to which a word-formation rule can be applied to new morphemes, to form new words
• Class 2 affixes tend to be more productive than Class 1 affixes.
• -ness vs. -ity
• both attach to: adjectives
• both form: nouns
• both mean: the quality of the adjective
blindness stupidity
happiness validity
goodness complexity
Productiveness• -ness is very productive, so it can expand its reach to other words:
• stupidness, validness, complexness
• The same is not true of -ity:
• *blindity, *happity, *goodity
• -ness is so productive, it can also be affixed to new words:
truthy + -ness truthiness
chair + -ness chairness
productive + -ness productiveness
Unproductivity• -able is another very productive morpheme:
• make-fun-of-able
• Other morphemes are not so lucky:
• -th: warm + -th = warmth
wide + -th = width
deep + -th = depth
cool + -th = *coolth
• -en: moist + -en = moisten
red + -en = redden
cute + -en = ?cuten
abstract + -en = *abstracten
An Intermediate Case• -ify attaches to adjectives to form verbs
• just + -ify = justify
pure + -ify = purify
• quick + -ify = ?quickify
smart + -ify = ?smartify
• An anecdotal case
busy + -ify = busify
ugly + -ify = uglify
• -ify has limited productivity
Blocking• Productivity can sometimes be limited by the existence of other words
• intelligent + -ness = *intelligentness
• “intelligence” gets in the way
• it blocks intelligentness from existence
• true + -ness = *trueness (truth)
• inhabit + -er= *inhabiter (inhabitant)
• guide + -er = *guider (guide)
• In other cases, a new word gets created anyway:
• pride + -ful = prideful (proud)
Content and Function Words• One last distinction: there are both content and function words.
• Content words =
• have some semantic content (meaning)
• nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• ex: politics, baseball, socks, green, create
• Function words =
• specify grammatical relations
• have little or no semantic content
• prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions
Content and Function Words• Content words are an “open class”--
• we can add new members anytime we want.
• Function words are a “closed class”--
• it’s not easy (or possible?) to add new members.
• When was the last time you heard a new pronoun? Or new preposition?
• (thoughts on the quick write?)
• Our minds also process function words differently from content words.
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